8th and 12th key to the GOP keeping the House

“The nation is probably going to be focused on Georgia Tuesday night” because of the 8th and 12th, said Erick Erickson, a Macon attorney, longtime political pundit and now professional Internet blogger.

Erickson, a Republican, said he expects the GOP to lose its majority in the House – unless Republicans can pick up the 8th, the 12th or both.

As of Thursday night, an astronomically high greater than 37% of early voters to cast ballots in the 12 Congressional district are African American. Early voting has tradionally been a few points less African American than on election day and therefor the electorate as a whole.

My prediction: Democrats hold both the 8th and the 12th and in retrospect Republican strategists will admit that Bush’s visits to the districts did more to enenergize base Democratic voters to oppose Burns and Collins as it did to help them.

For a little extra qualification of my prediction, keep in mind that in the 12th congressional district, Bush tied Kerry in 2004. He is now overall about 20% less popular nationwide than he was in 2004. What is his approval rating there, 45% or lower?

I’m kind of amazed at the lack of Republicans in the state to acknowledge the long-shot-ness of these races. Why would you have a President with upside down approval come to campaign for you unless you were hoping it would be some sort of hail mary? And that goes for Collins as well as Burns.

While it may just be a momentary event, this Sunday afternoon seems to find that the election momentum has shifted to the Republicans. Numerous reports have Lincoln Chafee even or ahead in Rhode Island, Conrad Burns even in Montana and Croker well ahead (12%) in Tennessee. Jim Talent in Missouri will likely pull out his race and I predict George Allen will also. That leaves PA and Ohio far more likely to be Dem gains, but most other targets look doubtful this afternoon.

The US House is tougher to predict and as has been said here earlier, Georgia may well tip the balance one way or the other in the new House. I predict the Dems gain 10 seats that will still leave them just short of control. I will not predict the Georgia races since I have been very involved in one particular race.

Why has the momemtum shifted? The economy is roaring along with the lowest unemployment rate in decades. The stock market is just off record highs reached last week. The conviction of Saddam makes progress in the war look at bit more tangible and the Iraqi judicial system willing to stand on its own feet. Progress in other words. And of course, John Kerry.

At the state level, Georgia enjoys a very robust economy due to good policies from Washington and Atlanta. Education test scores are rising and the state is finally off the bottom after only two years of Republican control. Billions of dollars are flowing into transportation projects from Atlanta and DC. The Governor and General Assembly took strong action against illegal immigrants and provided the model for other states. Private property rights will soon be enshrined in our state constitution also because of the strong Republican leadership in Atlanta. In other words, Georgia is hitting on all cylinders with Sonny Perdue and the Republican legislature working for the people of this state.

So on the state and national level, Republicans have more reason to be optomistic today than in many weeks. The game isnt over, but when people actually get into the booth and comtemplate pushing the button that would give control of Congress to left wing radicals, they seem to be having second thoughts.

Oh, I don’t know John. My super-secret sources from all three parties (Libertarians are actually ORGANIZING, which is in itself confusing if not self-contradictory) tell me that Whitehouse is ahead by EXACTLY 3.14159%

Tester has already won. The Montana elections board is merely waiting to make the announcement for forms’ sake.

Lewis Carroll over at Oxford has releaed a poll that shows all is forgiven, though, so y’all may yet have a chance!

Keep smokin’ ‘em while ya got ‘em!

I’ll keep you posted on all the stuff I make up, and you continue to do the same, deal?

I’ll stick with my preditions made last week albeit before Kerry’s gaffe. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t see that effecting too much, but I could be wrong and/or out of touch.

Democrats take the Senate and House.

Interesting though, John Douglas, I said last week that Chafee might have a shot at turning his race around, because he had just put up such a strong ad. I think he was trailing by 20% at that point but the ad was really good. Would be a lot of irony for both sides if he ended up saving the GOP bacon. I like Chafee.

So we will see very soon. Anyone watching the Governor’s debate tonight??

The debt monster knows no mortal master at this point. It grew out of control under the GOP, the party that promised fiscal responsibility.

The crowning blow was the $8 trillion unfunded liability that Max Burns voted for in the Medicare Drug Bill.

I confronted Max with this on a talk show some months back. He and the GOP hack host defended it by saying it provided preventive medicine and would make health care costs go down. That was a rationale straight out of the Democratic Party book.

Max plead that he did not know what the cost was, claiming that he believed the $400 Billion estimate (that we now know was a White House deception). I countered that Senator Lindsay Graham said the next week that the cost would be in the $trillions. Rep. Charlie Norwood called it the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

Burns said he did not know where I got the $8 trillion figure, but it is in financial report of the USA.

As an aside, at the mention Of Senator Graham, Burns made insulting comments about the senator being in disfavor and many in the GOP having issues with him.

Burns not only disavowed fiscal responsibility, he attacked one who practices it regularly.

Burns record shows him to be fiscally irreponsible, except in garnering campaign donations from the big pharmaceutical companies reaping a bounteous windfall from his votes.

The problem is GDP is a poor measurement for health of the economy. A better measurement is real wages and saving rates forthe majority of Americans. If you take out the top 5 % and bottom 5% you would see declining real wages and negative saving rates. That is why a year ago I said GDP would drop and home defaults would go up.

You might find this post and comments on my blog interesting. You will read famous economist around the world debating this issue.

I think Immigration may get solved in this next election cycle. Hopefully both sides really the American People are tired of our open borders, and they can’t play politics with it. They must fix it.

So assuming Immigration gets fixed, the big issue for 08 that will determine the elections will be Health Care. I heard a physician speak from Emory Hospital and he said that 41% of middle class Americans no longer have medical insurance.

He also said that if one takes the attitude that I’ve got mine and I don’t care if you have yours won’t work either. He said it’s approaching a crisis and it will effect everyone.

We face a multitude of problems in our country. I wish we could have a bi-partisan effort to solve them.

You are right again. My wife and I say we pay and they do not all the time about health insurance companies. Also my doctor friends tell between the roll backs with Medicare reimbursements and fighting insurance companies it is getting tough. I think the mandatory pay plan from Romney might be a good first step.

JP, it’s pretty clear that he meant “left-wing radicals.” Trying to dust off a few folks who may not be — whether it be on a few issues, or overall — does not make “left-wing radicals” any less of “left-wing radicals.”